What you see here is the single best time management tip in Steven R Covey's useful book, "7 Habits of Highly-Effective People." It illustrates four possible categories for the things on your to-do list:
* important and due soon (1)
* important and not due soon (2)
* not important but due soon (3)
* not important and not due soon (4)
He points out that dealing with numbers one and four are obvious--you the do the important/due soon things first, and you do the not important/not due soon things last, if at all.
Where most people make a mistake is that they do the not important but due soon stuff second. If it's not important, why are you doing it? Why aren't you either deciding not to do it at all, or delegating it? Your attention should be going to the important-even-though-not-due-soon stuff (2). (In fact, I know why you---and I--are drawn to quadrant 3...often this is stuff that's more fun to do than what's in quadrant 2.)
If you use a to-do list, try drawing a big quadrant like this one, and write each task into the appropriate box. Then do the 1's and 2's, and find ways to get rid of the 3's or do them only after you've finished the first two. I've just started doing this--it's a real eye-opener!
